Strawberryland Forum

Hate to get political, but it appears legislators in my home state of South Dakota refuse to believe that transgender people exist. They have this bill called HB 1008, which essentially forces transgender people to use bathrooms that that coincide with their biological sex, or they can be accomodated with a separate "gender neutral" bathroom in another area. This has discrimination written all over it, and it's headed to the governors desk. He hasn't signed or vetoed the bill, but he is set to visit with transgender advocates tomorrow. Hopefully this will encourage our governor to veto the bill. If he doesn't veto HB1008, then our state will become the laughing stock of the USA and we will no doubt face a tourism boycott that will cut into our states financial well being. Opponents of the bill have already taken over a popular SD tourism hashtag to voice their concerns as well. Oh, and we also risk losing federal education funding from the government if the bill is signed into law.

In other news, the FBI really wants Apple to build a backdoor into the San Bernandino shooters iPhone so they can see if the assailants were linked to ISIL. Apple responded by releasing a statement on their website refusing to cooperate with the FBI. It appears the two could be headed to court next. While I understand where the FBI is coming from, trying to force Apple into building a backdoor program isn't right since someone could use that software for more nefarious purposes. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/">http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/</a><!-- m -->

I've been my age for a month.

(I couldn't think of anything else to say.)

Stella Grapes Wrote:I've been my age for a month.

(I couldn't think of anything else to say.)

I just tend to ramble about whatever goes on in my life and my various technology experiments and upgrades. As with my post before yours, it can, at times, get political. I try to avoid politics as much as possible to avoid any conflicts, but sometimes I just have to let it go. I like living in South Dakota, but if this continues, I might plan on moving to Washington state a couple years from now if I can. Yeah. I grew to love Washington. Beautiful state and Seattle is a wonderful progressive city.

Same in my case, though I lean more on the more geeky side of things, but of course there are times where I'll express my opinions on random things like dolls or culture from time to time.

I have no idea if anyone here watched Full House. If you did, then you know there is a sequel series, Fuller House, premiering on Netflix tomorrow on my time zone. I have mixed feelings about Full House. The Tanner family had great relationships with each other, although it wasn't a very adventurous show and I like things usually more adventurous than Full House. My favorite character was Kimmy Gibbler, who was best friends with DJ, the oldest Tanner daughter. The family was not very nice to Kimmy, and does not really acknowledge that they hurt her self-esteem until the very last episode.

Fuller House takes place decades later, with the original cast returning for their roles. The children are now adults, DJ and Kimmy with children of their own. DJ is recently widowed (like her father in the original series was a widower), and Kimmy is separated from her own husband. After DJ's husband dies, her sister Stephanie and friend Kimmy move in with her. The setup is very like the original Full House, with three adult women and three children brothers instead of three adult men and three children sisters. Kimmy has a daughter of her own now, the same age as DJ's oldest son. I would say the third generation should one day have a show if the Tanner family line didn't have a history of dying spouses. I don't want Kimmy's daughter to die! Kimmy would lose her mind!

I usually don't like sitcoms. I hope I like this one. I hope the things I didn't like about the original series are fixed in this. In the original series, the characters were mean to Kimmy just because she was eccentric.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K711nNOJ-A[/youtube]

Well what can I say? He finally did the impossible.

EDIT: Here's a quick shoop of him on board the Titanic:

Stella Grapes Wrote:I have no idea if anyone here watched Full House. If you did, then you know there is a sequel series, Fuller House, premiering on Netflix tomorrow on my time zone. I have mixed feelings about Full House. The Tanner family had great relationships with each other, although it wasn't a very adventurous show and I like things usually more adventurous than Full House. My favorite character was Kimmy Gibbler, who was best friends with DJ, the oldest Tanner daughter. The family was not very nice to Kimmy, and does not really acknowledge that they hurt her self-esteem until the very last episode.

Fuller House takes place decades later, with the original cast returning for their roles. The children are now adults, DJ and Kimmy with children of their own. DJ is recently widowed (like her father in the original series was a widower), and Kimmy is separated from her own husband. After DJ's husband dies, her sister Stephanie and friend Kimmy move in with her. The setup is very like the original Full House, with three adult women and three children brothers instead of three adult men and three children sisters. Kimmy has a daughter of her own now, the same age as DJ's oldest son. I would say the third generation should one day have a show if the Tanner family line didn't have a history of dying spouses. I don't want Kimmy's daughter to die! Kimmy would lose her mind!

I usually don't like sitcoms. I hope I like this one. I hope the things I didn't like about the original series are fixed in this. In the original series, the characters were mean to Kimmy just because she was eccentric.

I never really watched Full House while I was growing up, nor have I caught it during re-runs on TV. I do know it launched the twins Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen to stardom, but in Full House, both twins played one character named Michelle, and they got the credit of "Mary Kate Ashley Olsen".

It was my birthday just a few days ago too. I'm 29 now, and had a wonderful day. I got to go eat at the local Chinese buffet with my family.

Well, today is March 1st, a certain four-year-old cartoon aardvark's birthday. But more importantly...

South Dakota's Governor just vetoed HB1008, the transgender discrimination bill. Now SD won't be the laughing stock of the USA.

Also, it's "Super Tuesday", one of the biggest primary election days in the USA. If anyone has been keeping track of US politics here, this is one of the strangest election years I have seen. Such a large disparity between the amount of Republican and Democratic candidates. And one of them is [strike]Biff Tannen[/strike] Donald Trump.

So yesterday, I was at Walmart and got a new $20 Tracfone. I already had an older Tracfone, a Samsung Galaxy Centura since last fall. The main reason why I got the new phone is the Centura wasn't fit for modern internet despite being sold on HSN last fall. It would also have a nasty habit of freezing on me, sometimes while browsing the web, and sometimes after putting it in sleep mode after a phone call! The Centura also had a single core CPU...

The new phone is a Alcatel Onetouch Pixi Glitz featuring a Mediatek MT6582 1.3ghz dual-core CPU, Mali-MP400 graphics, 512mb RAM and 2gb internal storage. OS is Android 4.4 KitKat with a few UI customizations, though they aren't as extensive as Samsung's TouchWiz. The bloatware is suprisingly light, being mostly the built-in Google apps and a few extra tools. As for cell service, the Pixi has 4G capability. The Centura only had 3G.

The most interesting feature? A built in FM radio with record function. Reception seems rather good too with full RDS (Radio Data System) decoding.

So far, the performance has been outstanding, and I was able to get my remaining minutes and data transferred over from the old phone. The new phone shall be named Poppy.

Strange they listed it as a dual core when the MT6582 is a quad; it's the 6572 that came with a dual-core processor setup.